polenta for polenta haters + friday links

scene: the easter bunny and elijah are sitting at a bar, gossiping about all of the cultural mutts that they both have to visit. elijah is filling the easter bunny in on all of the recent news that he learned earlier this week so that when the easter bunny does his rounds, he won't be so out of the loop.

elijah: i saw eggboy eat an entire matzo ball at the seder, so i guess he's not that gluten free anymore? you can probably get away with throwing some hot cross buns into his easter basket.

bunny: i knew he'd come around... what about stoop? 

e: oh, she cut all of her hair off into a pixie so don't you confuse her for her husband or else she'll, i don't know, confit you or something.

b: well, shit. i'll be sure to bring her some extra chocolate crunchy eggs just in case... what about molly?

e: i doubt she's showered since monday, so keep your distance.

end of scene.

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ahhh i am so excited for the easter bunny to visit. it's going to be so much fun! i am going to lay in a bed of hot cross buns and eat all of the jelly beans and dye some eggies.

i have another easter side dish for you today, up on betty: it's polenta that will woo any polenta hater (there are somehow many of them in my life, i have no idea why) into a polenta lover. it's packed with a ton of ricotta and springy chives and you will probably (definitely) find yourself standing over the stove, taste testing it just one more time.

go check it out.

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friday links

when this passover thing is over*, i am making this here nutella babka.

...also all of these nutso amazing hot cross bun variations: the donut, the breakfast sandwich, the earl grey one, and the tangzhong one. 

*(who am i kidding, i ate the ham and cheese sandwich from this shoot on the second day of passover.)

how to pronounce kouign amann.

stoop's wedding photographer posted some of her photos this week!

i looooove the idea of naturally dyed coconut sprinkles.

tell me: why have i never made chocolate sugar cookies?

cauliflower rice, daikon rice... my short grain rice is forming an inferiority complex.

a beautiful iced cashew mocha accompanied by real good talk.

doesn't a ricotta cake with pistachio marzipan sound really absurdly wonderful?

samoa matzo crunch (!!!!)

i like to think that when i left new york, this lady took my spot. reading about her new life in the city makes me so happy.

happy weekend, everybody!!!

-yeh!

braised brisket with quinoa risotto

hey check out all this meat, you guys! i had to be kind of a bitch to get it. correction: i didn't have to be, i just sort of was when i realized how difficult it'd be to find. after searching at way too many groceries around here and asking all too many meat counter men, i found a very very large one at the town butcher that was frozen solid. it was entirely too big, so i had the man go back into the walk-in freezer and dig out another while i cringed at the thought of how long it had been in that freezer. despite jake dickson's voice in my mind advising me never to buy vacuum packed meat and to leave the deckle on and to make sure it is grain fed, i bought it. i had no choice. a tear came as memories of briskettown flashed before my eyes.

but i bought it and then i went to target and browsed the dollar section because what else are you supposed to do while your brisket defrosts? and in the dollar section i, for the first time since moving to this tiny town, ran into someone i knew. one of eggboy's friends. i stood there unshowered with brisket on my mind and grump in my system, trying to figure out where i had met her and when it came to me, i still had brisket on my mind, and she asked how i was and i said, i'm waiting for my brisket to defrost. 

i don't know if i was more embarrassed from telling a near stranger about my brisket defrosting or having not showered in a week, but i didn't even think to ask her how the small human growing in her belly was.

such a bitch i am. 

anyway, i got it home, i hurled it onto my counter, i tweeted about it, i said you better defrost by tomorrow goddammit, i frowned. i thought about raising a cow for this very reason. 

in the end it worked out. i made some good smells and a yummy quinoa accompaniment. there were leftover sandwiches for a very long time. one day, i will make a good bubbe. 

the recipe for this brisket, and its delightful quinoa risotto that uses the brisket's cooking liquids, may be found in my latest edition of molly on the range. passover's a comin! i can't hardly wait!

-yeh!

spring green risotto

for the longest time, when people talked about the quiet country life, i simply imagined the opposite of new york life: friday nights spent in a comfy chair knitting a cowl by the fire, a view from the kitchen window of land and more land, bird songs cutting through the clean air at the start of the day... cliché things that include slow movements and tame leisure activities were my meanings of "quiet."

it wasn't until recently that i actually considered the true sonic qualities of the places i've lived, and realized a literal meaning behind this whole quiet country life. 

new york mornings sounded like the very beginning of mgmt's "kids" paired with the most relentless construction site of a neighboring building. it was loud but energizing. later the subway sounds, and more subway sounds... green peace street people saying hello and asking if i have one moment for the earth, elevator dings, the thwack thwack thwack of street stands making their egg sandwiches, and obviously lots of foot steps. at night after the bars and the shows, you could hopefully hear the glockenspiel man tinkering in lincoln center. 

growing up in chicago meant two, maybe three, very distinct sounds: the stars of food network teaching braising techniques and iron chefing in the background of whatever homework or instant messaging i was doing, and then talk radio. always talk radio for my mom, all the time. even now, i associate it with being stuck in traffic on the way to ice skating practice with the hot sun shining down on me. oh it was always one of my less favorite times of the day because i was clearly more ben folds and jean sibelius than roe conn.

here, all of the quiet sounds are amplified. if i don't wake up to the 8am town bell tower playing "america the beautiful," it's my very own alarm accompanying the hum of the fridge and eggboy's frying eggs from all the way down the hall. i can hear myself yawning, i can hear the spoon mixing the tahini into my yogurt. zero traffic equals zero traffic sounds equals a crystal clear garrison keillor and classical m.p.r. (it's the minnesota radio culture that really gets to me, i just can't believe how good it is.) it was here where i realized that eggboy makes chewing sounds.

and when we move out to the farm i plan on abusing the quiet to listen to lorde at her loudest with only the farm cats to annoy.

today on betty crocker, i'm sharing a recipe for risotto that's packed with green vegetables. it begs you to stand at your stove with a glass of wine in hand, listening to the sounds of your dinnertime kitchen.

happy monday!

-yeh!

RED BEAN & OATMEAL HAMANTASCHEN

reasons why purim *might* have a shot at making it into my list of top 20 favorite holidays this year (bc do i need to explain again how i'm actually a grandma that prefers the more sober holidays where you eat matzo ball soup):

1. it's slowly becoming a holiday for just reminiscing on my college days when brian and i would sit in his hell's kitchen apartment, nursing our hangovers, eating hamantaschen that his mom sent him, and getting powdered sugar all over our faces. and then probably going to indian buffet.

2. i am a sucker for all of the absurd hamantaschen variations that are all over the internet. you people are nuts and i love it.

3. i got invited to a purim party and i plan on dressing eggboy as johnny weir, while i transform into tara lipinski. (not. but wouldn't that be fun?) i'm looking forward to my first purim party.

this week in ways to asianize a jewish thing, i give you: red bean hamantaschen. (yeah, i am still hacking away at the bigass batch of red bean paste i made for our snow picnic.) i've also made some hamantaschen that are oatmeal filled. they're like a cookie in a cookie and they're chewy and very satisfying. find them both in the latest installment of molly on the range!

-yeh!